Desire for Success

The results of meditation don’t come simply from wishing, but they don’t come without desire. You have to really want to do this and want to do it well. That’s one of the bases for success: desire.

Focus on the breath and really want to be with the breath. Give yourself good reasons to be there. One of the good reasons is that if you can change the way you breathe so that it feels really good coming in, really good going out, the mind will want to be here. And when there’s desire, it’s a lot easier to stick with it.

Of course, the needs of the body will change. So you have to be very intent on what you’re doing. Watch what you’re doing carefully and adjust in line with the results. It’s in this way that the meditation becomes a skill. Otherwise, it’s like shooting birds up in the dark of the night. Aim your gun up and you may hit a bird. But it’s not because of any skill on your part, and it’s very unlikely that you’ll hit one.

If you want to develop a skill, you have to commit to doing it and then watch while you’re doing it—and watch the results so that you can figure out how the results are connected to what you did. In that way, you can begin to make changes if the results aren’t good enough.

So approach meditation as a skill. Peace of mind can come on its own every now and then, but that’s the result of past karma. You want to be responsible for your present karma so that even if the conditions coming in from your past karma are not good, you can still make something good out of them. Whatever comes your way, if you learn how to handle it properly, it can become part of the path to the end of suffering.

If pain comes, you can use it to develop your discernment. If pleasure comes, you can use it to develop your concentration. Then watch the mind as it relates to the pleasure to make sure that it has a mature attitude toward its pleasure. In this way, you develop wisdom and discernment all around, regardless of what comes. And the meditation will succeed.

Sometimes you hear that you shouldn’t be striving for a goal in meditation, that the path is the goal. But the Buddha was never one of those people who say that. That’s why he said there is a path and there is a goal. They’re two very separate things, but following the path takes you to the goal. So you don’t sit here trying to clone awakening by not having any desire. It takes the desire to get there. Once you’re there, then the desire will go away on its own because it’s been satisfied. That’s how there’s success in what you do.